There is subliminal perplexity and anxiety in Washington. In the corridors of Congress and the meeting rooms of the major research centres on Massachusetts and Connecticut Avenues, the same questions keep coming back: what’s really going on in the Middle East, and how should the US avoid getting bogged down there yet again? The civil war in Syria, the barbarity of IS (Islamic State), the airstrikes in Yemen by a coalition of nine Arab countries and the sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shia are all front-page news. But US strategy in response is far from clear. With the Middle East in flames, the US is finding it hard to reassure its allies, Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states, Egypt and Iraq.

Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi’s official visit to Washington, the first of its kind, has drawn attention to the Obama administration’s constant balancing act with its Middle East partners. The US has promised Iraq $200m to help people displaced by the fight against IS, and agreed to support its application to the International Monetary Fund for a $700m loan, to compensate for its worsening budget deficit, which is expected to reach $25bn in 2015, about a third of its projected oil revenues for the year.

At the same time, the US is urging Iraq to distance itself from the Iranian regime. Obama has said that Iran should “respect Iraqi sovereignty” and refrain from intervening unilaterally on Iraqi territory, accusing Iran of giving military support to Shia militias fighting IS without Iraq’s approval. These militias have been accused of looting and violence towards (Sunni) civilians when they recaptured Tikrit from IS in March.

Al-Abadi played down Iran’s intervention in Iraq, claiming that only 100 Iranian military advisers were in the country. He and his entourage took every opportunity to praise the diplomatic progress on the Iranian nuclear issue, and the US’s commitment to obtaining a definitive agreement by June. A US diplomat (an expert on the Arab world who wished to remain anonymous) said: “Al-Abadi’s message was clear. He told the US that it could not move closer to Iran, even tentatively, while at the same time reproaching Iraq for being its ally.” As the diplomat sees it, the US no longer knows what to do in the Middle East: “Just a few years ago, we didn’t have this kind of consistency problem with our allies. They fell in with our broad strategy, and we gave them some leeway so that it didn’t seem as if we were requiring total obedience. Today, we are always having to reconcile contradictory positions.”

Ahmed Ali, an Iraqi-born political scientist with the Washington-based thinktank Empowering Youth for Peace in Iraq, shares this view: “The Obama administration knows very well that the Baghdad regime will continue to seek a balance between the US and Iran, since it needs both these heavyweights in order to defeat IS.” Richard Nephew of the Brookings Institution, a thinktank with Democratic Party ties, points out the paradox of Obama curbing any attempt by Congress to strengthen the sanctions against Iran, while at the same time talking tough about Iran in relation to the situation in Iraq or Yemen.

Saudis turn to Republicans

Al-Abadi’s visit has also highlighted far greater tensions within the US’s sphere of influence in the Middle East. He was doubtful about the usefulness of the Saudi-led coalition’s airstrikes in Yemen, aimed at halting the advance of the Houthi forces, saying that “the only way forward is a political solution by the Yemenis themselves.” Iraq is urging a return to national dialogue with the participation of the Houthis, who have taken up arms again in protest at President Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi’s plans for a federal state (1).

Even more significantly, Al-Abadi told journalists at Blair House (the White House’s guest residence) that the Obama administration shared his view, claiming that it too saw Saudi Arabia as the main obstacle to a ceasefire in Yemen. This provoked an immediate denial by Alistair Baskey, spokesman for the US National Security Council, and a hastily organised press conference by the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, who said there was “no logic” to Al-Abadi’s remarks.

In reality, Al-Abadi’s remarks neither shocked nor surprised the US government. There is considerable doubt in Washington concerning Saudi Arabia’s overall strategy on Yemen. The Obama administration was not caught unawares by, but did not approve of the formation of an Arab coalition against the Houthi rebels. A month later, when the coalition announced it would end the airstrikes, the US media reflected widespread scepticism over the effectiveness of the campaign, dwelling on its high cost — more than 1,000 killed, hundreds wounded and nearly $300m worth of damage — and the fact that it had hardly diminished the rebels’ military capabilities. An Arab diplomat in Washington said: “Saudi Arabia wants to show Iran that its influence will be systematically countered in the Arabian peninsula. The US is aware of this, but also knows that there can only be a political solution to the Yemen crisis.”

Washington had difficulty persuading Saudi Arabia to try any solution but airstrikes, especially as the Saudi leaders now have more faith in the Republicans, whose virulent attacks on Iran and Obama they admire. The letter from Republican senators to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, reminding him that Congress would have the final word on the nuclear agreement (see “The mullahs’ quiet victory”), has convinced Saudi Arabia that Obama’s authority is weakening.

To limit civilian casualties and the consequences of an intervention that could set the entire region ablaze, the US armed forces vetted the coalition’s targets. Officially, Saudi Arabia and its partners defined the targets to be bombed, and the Pentagon provided the information for this, gathered by its drones and processed by its control centres in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. But as defence consultant Richard Stark says, “providing or not providing information amounted to having a veto on potential targets.”

Three US aims

This indirect participation in Saudi military operations, together with US naval operations to stop arms shipments reaching the Houthis, fulfilled three objectives. The first was to delay for as long as possible, or even prevent, a ground offensive involving the 150,000 Saudi troops massed on the Yemeni border. This was not for humanitarian or pacifist reasons, but because the US feared the offensive would end in the rout of the Saudi army. After November 2009, when the Saudis suffered heavy losses after a first attack on the Houthi rebels, the US was keen to avoid a repeat, which could have forced it to send in its own ground troops just when the campaign for the 2016 presidential election was beginning.

The US was all the more cautious about a ground intervention because its two potential allies in this were unlikely to participate — Egypt, though it was taking part in the airstrikes, and Pakistan, which to the great disappointment of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, had decided not to join the coalition. To date, the US has turned down Saudi Arabia’s requests that it pressure Pakistan, to the relief of its prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan, a Sunni-majority country, is a long-term military ally of Saudi Arabia. The countries, both opposed to the former Soviet Union and India, stepped up their cooperation during the first Afghan war (1979-89). Saudi Arabia is one of Pakistan’s main funders; as a nuclear power, Pakistan offers Saudi Arabia its protection. Sharif, who has been much criticised by his Saudi allies and the United Arab Emirates, has promised to intervene if, and only if, Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity is threatened. “The Pakistani army is like the country. It includes Shias, and we cannot let the struggle for influence between Saudi Arabia and Iran cause it to implode,” says Pakistani political scientist Khalid Muhammad, who believes it is not his country’s business to support an “expansionist power grab” by Saudi Arabia.

The US’s second aim in trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to prioritise a political solution and dissuade it from launching a ground operation relates to the situation in Iraq. During his Washington visit, Al-Abadi warned the US of the dangers of allowing a ground operation, saying that if it went ahead, Saudi Arabia would be behaving like Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. In 2011 Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Bahrain to suppress a major (mainly Shia) uprising alarmed the Iraqis, who felt that their own country, with a Shia-led government, would become a target for Saudi military action. The Arab diplomat in Washington said: “The last thing the US wants is to worsen the tension between the Saudis and the Iraqis. Iraq has accusedSaudi Arabia of secretly funding Islamic State. But the crisis in Yemen suggests that Saudi Arabia has decided to take the initiative and show its rivals that in future they will have to reckon with it.”

Washington’s third objective is to prevent the region from becoming a proxy battleground between Saudi Arabia, which could set itself up as champion of the Sunni world, and Shia Iran. Pragmatism is the word. Already involved in Iraq where it is fighting IS, and keeping its options open on military action in Syria, the Obama administration knows that any deterioration of the situation could lead to fresh outbreaks of sectarian violence across the Middle East, and in the Gulf, a strategic area for the world supply of hydrocarbons.

A Pandora’s box

Political scientist Hasni Abidi, director of the Study and Research Centre for the Arab and Mediterranean World (CERMAM) in Geneva, says: “In the Arab world, there’s a common belief that the US is trying to provoke widespread conflict between Shia and Sunni in order to consolidate its influence in the Gulf and the Middle East. But there would be nothing more risky than opening this Pandora’s box. It could lead to chaos, from the shores of Lebanon all the way to India.” In Lebanon, Hizbullah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, has already called for the Muslim world to oppose the “manipulation and conflicts” created by Saudi Arabia. This echoes Iran’s president, Hassan Rohani, who during this year’s military parade in Tehran directly accused Saudi Arabia of funding terrorism in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is well aware that the US is reluctant to see an escalation of its power struggle with Iran. While its Sunni dignitaries continue to damn the “Shia heretics” on social networks, its foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, insists that his country is not in a war of influence or proxy war with Iran. He has nevertheless called on Iran to stop arming the Houthi rebels. In the current climate, and given Saudi Arabia’s mistrust of the US, which it has not forgiven for the fall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt in 2011, it is not impossible that Saudi Arabia will end up going against its protector’s wishes and intervening on the ground in Yemen. Saudi public opinion, whipped up by violent nationalist and religious discourse, wants a show of strength to erase the shameful memory of 2009. That could be risky. A Saudi businessman in Virginia (US) said: “That’s just what Iran needs to consolidate its influence in the region. It would strengthen Iran, which seems to be the only country with a coherent strategy. It’s no accident that the Obama administration wants to reach an accord with Iran at all costs.”

Many experts believe Iran’s diplomacy is flawless for the moment. Not only has it concluded an interim agreement on its nuclear programme, but it has also convinced Turkey and Pakistan not to join Saudi Arabia’s coalition for the bombing of Yemen. Another important victory is that Russia has quietly lifted its own partial embargo on arms shipments to Iran, in effect since 2010. This decision has revived a contract worth $800m, signed in 2007, for the supply of S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

Iran seems, at least in the short term, to have benefited the most from recent events. It has been strengthened by more-or-less restored relations with the US and the West in general, and is doing as it pleases in Iraq and Syria, and taking advantage of dissent in the pro-US camp — even if its leaders worry about the military reversals suffered by its Syrian allies. Iran has even put itself among the doves by reminding the world through its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, that it has “not invaded any country for more than 250 years.” Its calls for a peace plan for Yemen scored points in an Arab world on the whole hostile to the coalition’s intervention, even among the coalition’s members.

With the turmoil from the 2011 uprisings still worsening (2), Iran, though a Shia state, suddenly looks like a role model to a Sunni world in disarray.

Akram Belkaïd

Akram Belkaïd is a journalist

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Translated by Charles Goulden

Akram Belkaïd is a journalist

(1) Hadi, elected in 2012, six months after the negotiated exit of his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh, initially took refuge in the port city of Aden before fleeing to Saudi Arabia this March.